Paterson strikes while the Irons is cold

Put the Heimlich manoeuvre on Andy Irons. There's something stuck in his throat. The former runaway leader of the world championship race had another first-round loss on Tuesday, going down to West Australian Jake Paterson in the Nova Schin Festival at Silveira in Brazil to continue his six-month long choke.

Irons had a second world title in the bag earlier this year when he won events at Bells Beach, Fiji and Japan.

Since then, however, the Hawaiian - admitting he gets "voodooed out by everyone wanting me to lose" - has bombed out in South Africa, California and Spain's Mundaka to let six-times champion Kelly Slater take top spot and WA's Taj Burrow close the gap in third place to virtually nothing.

Paterson pulled into a deep 1.5-metre tube for a near-perfect 9.5-point ride on Tuesday to relegate Irons into a dangerous sudden-death second-round heat against local wildcard Fabricio Machado. "The waves were really similar to a place back at home which Taj Burrow and I surf all the time," Paterson said. "It's our favourite wave, so I just took it easy and waited for the really good ones. I've had Andy so many times this year already, and though I'm not comfortable being against him, there are no nerves at all. I just know I've got to do well to beat him."

Slater, who leapt past Irons in the points race when he won last week at Mundaka, jumped all over Sydney's Nathan Hedge and Brazilian wildcard Diego Rosa to rub salt water into Irons's wounds.

"The heat felt all right," Slater said. "It feels good to get that heat out of the way. We'll see what happens, but I don't expect Andy to have too much trouble with the wildcards in this contest. I think he's going to be pretty fired up and get himself back in groove."

World No. 3 Burrow went straight into the third round by taking care of Sydney's Richie Lovett and Brazil's national champion Leonardo Neves.